Simultaneously showing how death alienates us from ourselves and brings us closer to community, Azazel Jacobs’ tender and trenchant “His Three Daughters” explores the limits of what we can control while grieving. It’s a testament to the imperfect, rating, yet healing power of family amid tragedy.
The film wastes no time throwing viewers into the whirlwind of conflict that befalls the titular three daughters. Katie (Carrie Coon), Christina (Elizabeth Olsen), and Rachel (Natasha Lyonne) all gather at their father Vincent’s(Jay O. Sanders) house as he nears the end of his struggle with cancer and has entered hospice care. The trio are ill-prepared to care for their father in his final moments, having all lived their separate lives and not spending time with each other apart from holidays.
From the start, the film puts its characters in boxes, making certain parts of their personalities their defining attributes: Katie is the type-A eldest sibling who finds peace in handling all the logistics of Vincent’s upcoming passing. As the middle child, Christina attempts to be the peacemaker and frequently talks about missing her daughter, Mirabelle, back at home. Rachel was the one who was taking care of Vincent before he needed to enter hospice and, much to Katie’s chagrin, spends most of her time sports betting or smoking weed. Cleverly, as the reality of Vincent’s passing draws nearer, Jacobs subverts the expectations of these dynamics even while the film offers little room to breathe amid impending death.
“I think that represents most of what this experience has been for me … that there’s no beginning. It’s just suddenly you’re just in it, and it’s just happening,” Jacobs shared. Indeed, apart from a few key sequences, the film spends most of its time inside Vincent’s cramped apartment, where limited space and large personalities threaten to disturb the peace.
With “His Three Daughters” making its Netflix debut, Jacobs spoke with RogerEbert.com over Zoom about shooting the film in sci-fi lighting, the wish fulfillment of the film’s ending, and working with his three leads not only as actresses but also as filmmakers.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
What prompted the number three and the focus on daughters instead of having a mix of different siblings?
There’s a lot of intentionality to it, but there’s also a lot of me just going on instinct. I began by just writing what I felt were different sketches of different people and their stories. One night, I realized, “Oh, each of these separate strands could be different people, and because they’re coming under home, suddenly there’s a lot of conflict,” because of how they each would approach this particular situation of a parent dying. In terms of why they were daughters, that was something that just spilled out … that’s just how it happened.
I realized that, as a man writing the story, it would be important for the title to reflect that. For the characters, the title refers to the way that they see each other through their father’s eyes. There’s this idea that the father is looming over them, and we, as viewers, are looming over the daughters from the father’s point of view. Everything that happened the father could imagine and could somehow be present for. So the title was a way for me to at least acknowledge my presence and the way that they saw each other.
Why three? I think that it represents the different stages that I’ve felt going through this process with my parents. I’ve been all three of those and they feel very different I can change quite quickly being Benji and being the father, but in that case, there is some kind of a split personality that I felt where I want to just get on top of something very, very and do all the details and think that I’ll get some type of control over it and then be some kind of peacekeeper and see a person that just keeps my head down, do what I do, try to help, but also just try to step away as much as possible in the way that Rachel does.
The film wouldn’t have the same effect if it was titled “His Three Sisters” … the fact that it is daughters adds another layer of separation and disconnect between the three of them.
Because they don’t see each other as sisters, or at least Katie and Christina don’t see Rachel as a sister. But the father sees them collectively as his daughters regardless of how the women may think about each other. Some of my favorite films are ones like “Dead Man” … where the whole narrative is in that one title. “Sunset Boulevard” is another one. These titles just tell you the whole story in the most simple way. Especially since we don’t see the three daughters till the very end, it’s kind of the coda. It’s what this is about and we’re going to see it at the very end.
We’re immediately thrust into the tumultuous dynamic once we hear Katie’s diatribe. There’s a lived-in sense of how long they’ve been in this space, which manifests in their dynamic’s awkwardness. Can you talk more about the decision to place this film where they’re at?
I think that represents most what this experience has been for me … that there’s no beginning. It’s just suddenly, you’re in it and it’s happening. One of the things that has scared me about representing death in this film is the idea that there’s some closure, or there’s an introduction and middle or that everything goes in slow motion. But I felt that having this introduction be so abrasive represented my experience. Suddenly you’re just dealing with this thing. When my folks were having health problems, it felt so far away, and then suddenly, it was half an inch in front of me.
I had a window to make this film before things got too advanced and I wouldn’t have the ability or focus to make the film. That was part of the energy … I said “I’m going to go in, I’m going to just jump into the story.” It was the same approach I took to putting the film together. I went straight to the actors and told them that we were going to hold each other. I had a gap before my responsibility to my family wasn’t going to allow this.
I want to talk about how you used the 10th floor of this co-op on NY’s Lower East Side. You strategically move the film out into different spaces but for the most part, you and cinematographer Sam Levy did a great job of making the house feel claustrophobic. At times it feels like the camera is taking up too much space. There were even some elements of horror since we don’t see Vincent for most of the film. He’s just this sort of entity and force in the other room.
That’s why I wanted this very strong red light. You could also see this film as a sci-fi one. That’s actually how I described it to Sam. I said, “I want this sense of the abyss, of something unknown, that’s what’s going on in Vincent’s room. It’s like this other planet going on over there that you can visit. Then when you step out of his room, that’s when you go back to your normal life of making coffee, and figuring out groceries. Then, when you step back into Vincent’s space, time is this whole other thing. Every second feels like it’s an hour. Like when we first see Katie down the hall, she’s bathed in this red light emanating from Vincent’s room. I don’t think it was natural but it felt correct.
Especially since y’all were so high up, I’m sure figuring out the lighting was even more important.
I mean, another reason that we shot on film is because film has this communication with light in such a specific way. In my experience with video, I have to spend time shaping the light to go into the area that I want to. Shooting on film did dictate who we’d start with. If there was a night scene, we’d have to shoot in one direction with a blocked-out window since we were not going out there and blocking out the window on the other side and then couldn’t turn around until the light dropped.
It’s the same thing with shooting in an actual location. We had to work with our neighbors and not shoot from midnight to 6 AM. We made sure to be shooting at a time when people were going to be happy and okay with it. The building unit we were shooting on completely welcomed us. Every time people say that the film has a stage feel to it, I take it as a huge compliment because it means that what Sam and I did in terms of the editing and framing makes the film feel like it’s happening naturally. In reality, of course, it’s all completely manipulated.
I wonder what the residents were thinking when you had Carrie, Natasha, and Elizabeth yelling at each other and going at it.
Yeah, we did let people know on that floor when the big confrontation scene was coming up, but it felt like we were allowed to be free and unbothered. We shot downstairs and there wasn’t any fanfare. It wasn’t until the very last scene we shot that Natasha had to go to the weed shop. The paparazzi showed up for that and were like, “Oh, so this film production has started,” and I was like, “No, we’re actually at the very end!” They had no idea we were shooting and that it was wrap day. They had that one picture of Natasha and that was it.
One shot I loved was when Katie confronted Rachel about smoking in the bathroom. The way you frame that scene, we never see Carrie’s face delivering lines we just see Rachel’s face react to what’s being said. We only see that interaction through Rachel.
I love that you can feel Carrie’s performance and how Natasha’s face was reflecting Carrie. A lot is going on there; Sam and I had very specific ideas for some of those visuals, and that framing was one of them. But it’s always a surprise when it comes to actually shooting it because once you have performers doing it that’s when you’re like, “Okay, not only does this shot work but these actors are taking it beyond how I would have dreamed it.”
As much as this film has a lot of dialogue, these women all communicate aspects of their personalities through physical tics. Katie always has her hands folded, Christina always has her hand to her chest, and Rachel is frequently slouching. Were these cues you put in the script or something that the actresses workshopped and brought to their characters?
There was a bit of both going on. For most of the rehearsal, I was just figuring out how to communicate the rhythm of each of the characters so that they were disparate enough so that the conflict was going to happen, but that there was also some sort of synchronization. There were certain mannerisms each of them would do from the beginning. However, I can describe how a character should look at another character or how they should respond and react physically to a degree, but once the cameras start rolling. That’s when the actors take it and go somewhere else. As a director, I wanted to make sure I created an environment where they all could be as vulnerable and open to do this work.
I will tell you that the framing was an essential part of their performance though, because they’re all filmmakers, they understand that I’m not doing coverage. They have this moment where they’re on and they have to give it all within that I’m not going to be doing a closeup of their hands. I’m not going to close up their eyes. I’m not going to be getting their gestures unless they put it within this frame.
That’s interesting. So they’re aware of the space the camera’s taking and what they ultimately have to bring within the frame if they want it to be captured.
I showed them everything. I showed them the shot list, and I showed them a paper edit of this. They weren’t afraid that they were excited by it. I approached them as filmmakers and talked to them outside of just their acting. I wanted to prime them to know that the dialogue was going to have this rhythm that people don’t speak in but ensure they could still be comfortable and give themselves over to that.
That sequence where Jovan’s character is pontificating for a long time at Katie and Christina felt awkward and exposition-heavy. Then, on the second viewing, you’ve replicated the awkwardness of when you’re stuck in a conversation, and while you want to not listen, you don’t want to be rude to the person speaking either.
Yeah. It’s always an intrusion when a new actor comes in after we’ve all fallen in sync. When he then begins to walk through the living room and guides us to the other side of the room, it communicates ownership. He’s saying “I feel comfortable here and I’m making my space and showing you that I know this space.”
Let’s talk about the ending. You have a command of pacing and control throughout the film but in this sequence where you go a bit surreal, there’s an ambiance of play.
You’re right in that the framing was very specific and intentional. We had two days to shoot that scene where Vincent wakes up and goes to the living room. Each day we would complete a whole scene so this was the first we split a scene over two days. I was writing this scene before Jay O. Sanders was cast in the role. This is ultimately a scene of wish fulfillment. It’s a scene that films give us and that art can give us. I try to address that in what Christina says. But even personally, by the end of this film, I wanted this sequence to happen. I needed it and now when I see it, I am in desperate need of this fantasy of closure we semi-get at the end.
We’ll all leave this Earth with regrets but it’s nice that in some way, Vincent can make peace with his daughters before passing.
Also, in that scene, he’s saying “You don’t know me. You know me but you don’t know everything.” I’m not going to be able to get it together, but I had this idea that at my funeral, I’d be able to show all these things that people didn’t know that I knew how to do like I knew how to juggle or knew another language. There’s more to me. I felt like Vincent didn’t have a chance to communicate that fully to his daughters but I do think that as viewers we feel that and that was important to get across.
I’d love to hear about that scene of Elizabeth Olsen singing at the end. Her song felt like a benediction and coda to all that came before.
It’s because of Christina’s relationship with her daughter, Mirabella, that she can ultimately reach down and have a song that comforts her siblings in the same way she was able to comfort Mirabella. It’s a superpower Christina has. There’s a specific reason why she’s in the middle of the couch while Katie and Rachel are leaning on her. There’s a sign of strength and grace that comes from Christina being connected to the family she had to find or the family that she’s made.
I can see this film being a blueprint or model for some families who are going through their grieving process and hopefully provide them an opportunity to reconnect with their family members.
The best thing about this week of release is that people have reached out to me and told me that “I reached out to this person.” That’s kind of something I did not expect, but it is the highest compliment. It is so meaningful to me.